I was pleased that I picked Oregon, which apparently broke about 90% of the brackets on the CBS bracket contest…and then Kentucky lost too
We should have created a Stately Play group on ESPN. Don’t even think about it.
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I’m a little late to the party but my wife and I are loving For All Mankind. We just finished Season 2 and have no plans to stop until we run out of show. This definitely has Ronald Moore’s fingerprints all over it and reminds us quite a bit of BSG in the way nearly every episode makes us nervous and/or uncomfortable. I like the alternate history, I like the soapy drama, and I like the time skips as a seasonal structure.
I don’t know that I have the reviewing depth of some of you and don’t pick up on the nuances of shows like a television sommelier, but I’m ranking this one high up my list of compelling TV, like The Americans. I’m hoping the show keeps up the momentum.
I also can’t wait until it somehow turns into Battlestar Galactica 2…
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I am really enjoying 3 Body Problem on Netflix…. I haven’t read the books and I’ve overflown some of the mixed critics regarding the series.
I am aware that in SP community the book was a high recommendation when it came out a few years ago, so I assume most of you have read the books, but for someone like me, without any idea what that story is about, I can not imagine the series will disappoint.
Edit: I just finished Season 1. It was brilliant.
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Ugh too bad, was looking forward to this
Episode 2 is better, in fairness!
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Seconded. Three episodes in.
I’m having a hard time nailing down the tone of this show as it can’t figure out the right balance between goofy humor and gravitas.
I also don’t care for the Brotherhood character. He’s unlikable and/or poorly acted.
Goggins is his usual excellent self but this show needs more than just him.
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I loved it, myself.
Casting is great. I’ve never seen Ella Purnell before but I was quite impressed.
And Goggins, of course, is phenomenal.
I like that we see a lot of pre-apocalypse stuff, and that it actually ties into the story.
3 Body Problem:
This is some solid scifi TV, based on some very solid scifi novels, brought to us by some very solid TV producers (aka, Those Guys Who Made Game of Thrones).
I’ll try to avoid spoilers, and I won’t bury the lede: it’s a great show, with a ton of tension, a very wide-scale story, and generally excellent acting. Unlike a lot of modern scifi, it very firmly keeps the “science” present in the science fiction, and it doesn’t treat the audience like we’re idiots and need everything signposted. The production values are super-high, much as they were for GoT, and the characters usually act like adults. Compare this to another recent and highly hyped Netflix project like Damsel, where everything was telegraphed and the acting was cartoonish, and it feels like night and day. The tone and quality of this is—to me—what Netflix should be shooting for with more of its projects (scifi and otherwise).
All of that said, though, there are some minor, er, problems I had with 3BP.
I don’t think it’s giving anything away to refer to these silver VR helmets that are used by some characters during the course of the show because they’re shown in the trailers. And the experience of people using them is handled very well. But they don’t use the things enough! Some of the best parts of this scifi (and a lot of other scifi) are making the audience feel the sense not knowing what’s going on, immersing them in alien culture, and showing off amazing tech. The headgear segments do all of this really well, so I don’t know why we don’t get more of it. And I could be less irked by that if what we got instead was also usually gripping and fun, but we often don’t. Sometimes we get juicy plot stuff or weird bits that add to the mystery. But too often we get our own dreary world and a couple characters that are frankly not very interesting for a large percentage of their screen time.
The three bodies above are not the problem in this regard. All three are interesting on their own, periodically surprising, and generally do things that propel the plot forward. The two bodies below are the problem.
These guys…. They make no sense. Both are ostensibly brilliant scientists, like several of the characters. But UNlike the other brilliant scientist characters, they show no apparent interest in solving any of the big issues at hand. Instead, they…hang out. They are meant (I think) to represent the micro, personal human side of things, while the macro, big-plot side of things goes on all around them. Despite being brilliant scientists, they seem rather disinterested in world-changing sciency-events and treat them more as inconveniences to their micro drama playing out. The micro-drama leads to something for each of them by the last ep (one of which you can see coming, the other of which is so out of the blue to be nonsensical), but it tested my patience.
Maybe I’ve become (more) heartless in my advanced years, or maybe the grand, macro stuff is just so interesting that I didn’t want breaks from it, but I just did not care about those characters. And even knowing where they wind up, I still don’t care.
Second problem was the violence/gore. I’m ok with violence usually. I took little issue with the violence-porn that was GoT. But here, it’s not in service of the plot, and it doesn’t help to deepen our sense of the world, because we already live in the world this story is set in. Westeros was fantasy. If a white walker ripped someone’s spine out, well, that tells us about a creature we didn’t know much about. It gives us a little more info about the world. In 3BP, we know the world already. There’s no reason we need to see gory violence vividly portrayed.
And I keep comparing it to GoT because seeing this same level of violence-porn here makes me think that this is somehow the “brand” of the 2 guys who directed both properties. And that is disappointing.
Another aspect of their “brand” that I like, though, is that, much as in GoT, characters that appear to be main characters can die. That creates a sense of real stakes, which I like. However, I will admit that in 3BP, I was irritated about which characters got killed off. And maybe that’s the point of their choices. I won’t say anything else on this topic so as to avoid spoilers.
Last irksome thing is all the smoking. So. Many. People. Smoke. It’s distracting. If it were just one or two characters, ok. But it’s many characters, and many of them are hyper-intelligent people. Which is not me saying “Only stupid people smoke” (although…), it’s just a trait that doesn’t fit with their characters. And it’s not subtle. There are several instances of the trite, “You’re not supposed to smoke in here,” and the character glares and does it anyway. Because they’re rule-breakers! They do what they want! Icono-smokers!
It’s hackneyed, and the writers are better than that. It sticks out so much that it made me think for a while that this must be an alternate world to ours. But it doesn’t seem to be posited as such. It’s so heavy-handed that I’ve concluded it must be part of some anti-smoking-law jihad the creators are on.
But these things, all in all, are worth putting up with because this is some real science fiction that asks big questions, pulls no punches, and is made by thinking adults for thinking adults. Which we do not get enough of. 8/10
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This review is great!
Here is one paragraph about how I like the show.
Here are 9 paragraphs about things that irk me.
8/10
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Are they though. Because this stuff is new to the property, it’s not from the books. It’s that really immature ‘look at this fucking maverick’ attitude you see from Hollywood writers. I read the books a while ago, and despite the third taking an abrupt turn for the worse, they were remarkably devoid of bullshit like this AFAI can remember, because Cixin isn’t from that culture.
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That’s very true–I don’t remember any of that from the books either. Perhaps that contributed to why it felt so jarring to me. I don’t mind creators taking liberties in going from book to video–it’s a different medium. But this insertion makes no positive difference.
And I agree that Cixin did not stick the landing in book 3. I’m hoping that the series decides to go a different way by that point.
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Hopefully they go mental by that point and the mavericks just fly a plane into the mothership in a determined suicide attack.
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Im glad OhBolloxs stepped back from their original impression of fallout and saw there might be something to it. Ive got a lot of respect for your opinions, but your original poor impression didnt vibe with the way the series left me feeling. I understand Mirefoxs concern about the mix of goofy and gravitas, but the games are very goofy and gravitas, so id say they nailed the source material.
As for 3BP. I want to love it, but itll take at least 4 seasons to see the story through, and ive no faith in netflix as they may just pull the plug when we’re invested in half the story
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Regarding 3BP: I had no prior knowledge about the source material, and I loved the series as it is. Maybe it’s a classical case in which you won’t enjoy the adaptation if you’ve read the books.
I saw The Gentlemen series, which I also liked (but did not love) and I’ve started Manhunt, which seems promising (despite over-idealization of Lincoln)…
Next will be Ripley or Sugar… not sure yet
I think three storylines is two too many, and while it is goofy, that’s fine to a certain extent, as there had always been a jarring contrast between the wholesome 50s vibe of the vaults (some of them) and the horrific wasteland that the attitude created.
Not sure it all melds together that well, and I find the abduction of Kyle Maclachlan deeply uninteresting, unlike Ella Purnell’s character. She should be out looking for a water chip.
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Just started 3BP and am rather enjoying it; I read the books forever enough ago that I don’t recall the little details enough to contrast them with the show.
I absolutely loved The Gentlemen (Netflix) and hope they make a second season.
Need to finish Shogun but I’ve enjoyed the season so far.
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